Welcome to the Department of English at Rutgers University

01 TTH5 CAC 16418 MILLER MU-114

Humanism and Its Discontents

This course will explore the diverse and remarkably vital literature of the sixteenth century—literature that exuberantly celebrated man's ability to shape himself and his world, accompanied by a deep skepticism about his capacity to do either. We will examine the major prose, poetry, and drama from a period now frequently referred to as "early modern," and try to understand why it has earned that label. Readings will range from utopian fiction to the love lyric, from romance/epic adventure to a formal "defense" of poetry, from a Shakespearean comedy that ends in multiple marriages to an anonymous "domestic" tragedy that concludes with spousal murder; authors will include Wyatt, More, Marlowe, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, etc. We will consider emerging languages of self and state, constructions and deconstructions of order and disorder, the engendering (and gendering) of authority and authorship, through writers engaged in the project of forging ideas of a nation and a national literary tradition.